Morris Peterson Speaks Out

Speaking with reporters before the Bulls game Morris Peterson appeared mellow and over the incident that occurred during the Nets game yesterday afternoon. Peterson told the media that, “Vince knows we would never do anything like that on the court to hurt anybody. It’s just an incident you wish you could take, you wish was over. In my mind I’m just going to be ready to play tonight. Everything that happened yesterday is over with.” It’s a shame that Peterson was booted from the game yesterday because he did a great job of containing Vince Carter, but, there’s no point crying over spilled milk or what could have been. It’s great to see that Peterson’s put this behind him and that he won’t be fined by the league for what transpired.

Has Sonny Vaccaro Destroyed American Basketball?

I was checking out some basketball sites and TrueHoop.com had a great article by Brian McCormick (the director of High Five Hoop School in California). McCormick starts off his column by writing, “Sonny Vaccaro destroyed American basketball. In the United States’ hyper-driven society, what’s now is no longer as important as what’s next, and Vaccaro, a brilliant businessman, capitalized on this cultural attitude to build his sports empire at the expense of American basketball development. The founder of the “shoe camps” and the one who in 2005 bragged about being the first to pay AAU coaches in 1991, Vaccaro’s fortunes rest on exploiting and exposing the basketball youth. His business acumen led directly to ranking services which rank players at younger and younger ages (Have you seen the list of the top players in the high school class of 2013? Seriously.), the proliferation of shoe camps, the shoe-sponsored AAU programs which pilfer precocious players from ordinary youth teams and leagues and an entire generation of players who grow up with an Entitlement Affliction because they are treated like stars and mini-celebrities from the time they are ten years old. A seventeen year old like OJ Mayo has been in the public eye at least since he was in 7th grade and walks the streets with an entourage, while being part of a bidding war which Vaccaro promised to win in an October article with ESPN’s Pat Forde. A college coach recently complained about not being able to reach a local girl player-Vicky Baugh-because of her “people.”

The rest of the article is just as powerful and is a must-read for any hoops fan. Check out the full article by clicking here.

The Raptors Are Firing On All Cylinders

A big reason for the team’s five game winning streak is the increased emphasis on the defensive end. Gene Keady was brought on board a couple weeks and his defensive schemes have paid huge dividends during Toronto’s recent five game win streak. Over the team’s last nine games they have been letting opponents score an average of 96.3 points while scoring an amazing 103.3 points per game. Why are those important statistics? Because Toronto had been allowing opponents to score an atrocious 108.5 points per game during the teams first 23 games of the season while only scoring 95.3 points per game. During the team’s last nine games they have been able to flip those early season numbers and it seems as though the improved results on the defensive end have lead to increased confidence on the offensive side.

Following the game last night Morris Peterson told Norma Wick that, “I think guys are really starting to buy into the concept of playing defense and we’re playing well together. Guys moving are moving the ball and it’s a beautiful thing.”

Sam Mitchell chimed in on the topic and told reporters following the game that, “I thought our defense kept us around. I thought Mo, Jalen and Joey did as good a job as you can do. It doesn’t look that way when Tracy McGrady has 38 points but they contested every shot.”

While I’m talking about stats, here’s something for those pundits who complain that the Raptors winning streak has come against inferior teams – Houston holds opponents to an average of 91.2 points per game while Toronto managed to score 112 points against one of the top defensive teams in the League.

GAME RECAP: Toronto 112, Houston 92

Besides the fact that this was the team’s fifth win in a row, this was a huge win because this game was a grudge match. Why would a game against Houston be considered a grudge match? Dictionary.com defines a grudge match as, “any contest or competition that is based on antipathy or grudges held by participants” and this fits the description of tonight’s game perfectly.

Houston arrived in Toronto today with Raptors fans fuming about some stupid comments made by Rafer Alston to the media. Alston whined about his time in Toronto last year and to complained to the Houston Chronicle yesterday that, “I knew in Toronto we didn’t prepare to have what it takes to win the game. We didn’t know what the other team was doing. We didn’t have a clue how we were going to defend. That frustrated me. We were going out there cold to try to win games.”

Another ex-Raptor who left Toronto on a bitter note is Tracy McGrady but he’s wise enough to keep his mouth shut when reporters ask him questions about Toronto. McGrady bolted Toronto because he felt he would always be in Vince Carter’s shadow a la Scottie Pippen to Michael Jordan. Throw in the fact that McGrady hated Butch Carter for comments he made about T-Mac during his rookie season and the bad blood lingers. Personally, I don’t blame McGrady for his hard feelings towards Toronto. He left because he wanted a bigger role on a team and because Butch Carter berated him during his rookie season. Would you want to play for a coach like Carter that tells the media that he doubts you’ll sign a second NBA contract? Following the game McGrady told reporters that, “Boo’s? Naw, I pretty much got over it. I just treat it like another away game. As far as boo’s that **** is pretty much played out.”

The bad blood spilled onto the court in the second quarter when James drove the lane and was fouled by Juwan Howard. Howard then took exception to the fact that James was talking smack on his way to the free throw line and decided to slam the ball into the mug of James. James and Howard both had to be restrained by teammates as Sam Mitchell sprinted onto the court looking like he wanted to get into a fight. Can you imagine Mitchell throwing haymakers? I guarantee the first punch Mitchell would have landed would have been to the face of Alston!

Following the game James told reporters that, “we were just going to the basket, exchanging words and he said something to me and I said something back. It escalated and then he threw the ball at me. Tempers were flaring.”

As Howard was being escorted from the court after his ejection he was shown trying to spark some passion into Stromile Swift, but it was the Raptors that were able to get a jump start from the scuffle. Toronto finished the half on fire and went into halftime with a 48 to 44 edge.

Toronto came out gunning in the third quarter and jumped out to a 15 point lead. Seeing the Raptors go for an opponent’s jugular is a great change from earlier in the season where they would come out flat in the third and teams would jump all over them. Instead of playing with fear now they come out of the half with a cocky swagger due to the belief that they will take care of business. I remember writing a report a couple weeks ago about how Toronto would hang in games into the half and then opposing coaches would make the necessary changes to allow their team to pull away for the win – it’s great to see Sam Mitchell be the coach making those changes to give the Raptors the edge they need to pull away in the third quarter.

Another thing that’s nice to see is Sam Mitchell playing the vets more. During the past week Mitchell has given Eric Williams playing time and Jalen Rose extended minutes. This has come at the expense of Rafael Araujo and Joey Graham but I feel this is a good experience for the younger players to have to earn their minutes. Instead of just handing the young guys minutes I think it’s a good thing for them to have to fight the vets for playing time.

Mike James stole the show tonight with his near triple-double of 30 Points, 8 Dimes and 7 boards. He was a cold blooded assassin tonight ripping Alston apart without mercy. Alston finished the game with a meager two points and seven dimes and didn’t score his first points until the six minute mark of the fourth quarter.

Speaking with Norma Wick following the game James refused to say this game was special because it came against his former team. Instead the classy vet told Norma that, “the main thing was keeping the winning streak alive. What hurt us was the month of November. We dug such a hole for ourselves in the month and no we’re starting to gain some leeway. We are starting to dig out of this hole. Every win is very valuable. No game is more important than any other. Even though this is my old team and all that hoopla I’m not thinking about that. I’m just thinking about making history with the Toronto Raptors.”

In his post game media scrum Mitchell gushed to reporters that, “I am proud of my guys. They are playing hard. The thing for me that is good is when I called Hoffa in and told him why we are going to start Matt and he gave me a big smile and said ‘coach, you know what? Whatever we have to do to try to win the game I want to do.’ That’s the attitude that all our guys have had. Everybody’s making sacrifices. That’s why I keep telling you guys that even when we were 1 and 13 or whatever I enjoyed couching these guys because they were trying and at the end of the day that’s all you can the guys to do.”

It’s fun to watch how winning a couple games can change the attitude of the players and coaching staff. Sam Mitchell resembled a grizzly bear when the team was losing games and now that the team’s winning he sounds more like a big teddy bear.

Rafer Alston Quote

The big buzz surrounding the Raptors today is the quote that Rafer Alston dropped in the Houston Chronicle yesterday. According to the Chronicle, Alston’s on record as saying, “I knew in Toronto we didn’t prepare to have what it takes to win the game. We didn’t know what the other team was doing. We didn’t have a clue how we were going to defend. That frustrated me. We were going out there cold to try to win games.”

Why are Raptors fans shocked that Alston would make a bonehead comment to the media? They must forget that this is the guy that was crying after a game and talking about retiring because he was a disgrace to his family or that this is also the same player that almost came to blows with Sam Mitchell last season as well. Alston’s quote is just another example of an immature player shouting off his mouth.

Speaking of Alston, how great does the Mike James for Alston trade look now in hindsight? Wow! Can you imagine the meltdowns that Alston would have had during our first month of the season when things weren’t going well for the team? It was during the month that James was the consummate professional and helped out the younger players, something I doubt Alston would had the mental stability to handle.

The Loyalty Fund

Have you heard about the Loyalty Fund yet? According to TheMightyMJD.com, a University of Tennesse fan put his “alligence” up for sell on Ebay and the bidding went out of control. Ebay shut down the auction because they thought it was a scam but it turns out the guy was selling his allegiences to pay for therapy for his kid with autism! The bidding went as high $1,400 and the person with the high bid contacted this dude and offered to follow through on his bid. The result? Head over to The Loyalty Fund to help special needs kids. Head over to theloytaltyfund.com to check it out.

The Miracle of St Anthony

“Hurley has sent more than a hundred players to full basketball scholarships, and five to the NBA as first-round picks, including his son Bobby. It stands as an odd juxtaposition: Hurley has stayed so that they can get out. Somehow, Hurley is still the biggest bargain in sports – $6,800 a season to win championships year after year, to mold men and raise the revenue to save the school and it’s student body, to save a way of Catholic school education that is fading in urban America.

To him there is something so pure about high school basketball. In Hurley’s practice gym, it is always 1965. There are no tattoos on his players, no cornrows, no facial hair. The most improbable dynasty in basketball has survived against the longest odds because Hurley has kept watch on these streets when he could’ve left to be a famous college coaching star, with a million-dollar-a-year package, a shoe deal, and racks of Armani suits. Yet on game nights, he wore that same maroon sweater-vest, those gray slacks, and his dulled brown loafers. And his kids still play the fiercest man-to-man in basketball, treating opponents like they’ve broken into their homes and threatened their families”
Adrian Wojnarowski ~ The Miracle of St Anthony

Too often in life our jobs become a way to pay the bills. Sometimes in life we are blessed to be given the chance to pursue career that we love but along the way disappointments and stress turn this career into a burden that we hold onto just to keep our stomachs full and to keep the bank from taking away our homes. Following St Anthony basketball for a year was the furthest thing from being a burden for Wojnarowski. Despite balancing commitments to his family, ESPN and the NJ Record that had him up until 3 a.m. most nights, documenting a year of St Anthony basketball was a passion for Wojnarowski and reading about a year with Coach Hurley will revitalize to any hoops fan.

“I think what happens in the book is you get emotionally invested in the school, the kids and the sisters,” said Wojnarowski. “For me I spend most of my time covering pro stuff and it tends to be less and less about teams sports, it tends to be about drugs and agents and those sorts of things. Spending time with Hurley reminds me of why I wanted to be a sports writer when I was a kid – there was an innocence about being there.”

Another aspect of the story that is so gripping is Bob Hurley. Despite of a rough exterior Coach Hurley motivates and molds his players into becoming better people, not just better basketball players. In “The Miracle of St. Anthony” Wojnarowski talks to a former player of Hurley, Mark Harris, who is now a firefighter. Harris looks back fondly on the time he spent playing for Hurley and values the life skills that were learned on the basketball court. Harris talked about a time his training on the basketball court gave him the ability to slow down events while fighting a fire which allowed him to save the life of his partner.

“When we played, we used to get guys in traps and look at their facial expressions – just to see how scared they were,” Harris told Wojnarowski. “As a kid, you’re not supposed to be thinking like that, but the game slowed down that much for us. As players for Coach Hurley, we were so prepared that we began to see everything at a different speed. So I was standing in the middle of this fire, and the flames are everywhere and the roof is giving way and we’re close to falling into the fire… and right away, all that flashed through my mind was: think before you react. Awareness. Alertness. And it was just like Coach had trained us. Everything turned into slow motion. It was like I was playing ball again.”

As a basketball coach myself, one of the most rewarding things is to watch that light click on with player you coach. This season coaching my junior high team we had the shortest player on the team start off the year afraid of driving the lane but by the time playoffs had rolled around he hard earned the nickname “Fearless” for his eagerness to tear down the middle of the key and willingly get hammered – just so he could earn a trip to the charity stripe. Here was the smallest guy on the court sacrificing his body to give his team a chance to win – what teammate wouldn’t love a player like that?

One player who was documented closely in the book that reminded me of “Fearless” due
to his heart was Otis Campbell. Wojnarowski loved to talk about this talented young player and said, “The kid who I saw grow the most in the year was Otis Campbell. The thing with Otis was early in the year he had come into St Anthony was shy and couldn’t open up. He struggled with Hurley and Hurley’s style the first couple of years. By his senior year the light had gone on and academically he was doing better.”

Later in the interview Wojnarowski was still singing the praises of Campbell and offered up some great insight into the maturation of the talented young man.
“We’d sit and watch practice and we’d end up talking a lot. The interesting part was to see this whole group grow together. When the season ended Otis decided to go to junior college and looked at a place in Florida but he thought there was too much to do at night, and he felt more comfortable in Kansas where it was quiet. He for me was probably the one that I was proudest to see how he grew and is still continuing to grow. We talk here and there and it’s great to see that light go on in a young kids’ life. He’s going to make a better life for himself than the generation before him in his family.”

Hurley’s players are able to see through his rough exterior most of the time and realize that he pushes them so that they can be successful in life and have better lives than their families have led. The sad part about this is that far too often these players don’t see this until they have caved to the pressure and demands that Hurley placed on them and they quit the team. Instead of being able to see that Hurley is challenging them so that they can grow and improve, they take his passion and outbursts on the sidelines as un-needed criticism. Wojnarowski documented a couple cases of players quitting the team in his book and without fail whenever a player quit the team they were begging to return to the team within weeks. Despite all the pressure of playing for Hurley and the intense practices the players craved the structure and discipline that Hurley provided on and off the basketball court for their lives.

“A lot of high school ball has been commercialized and kids have a sense of entitlement,” Wojnarowski lamented. “What I loved about St Anthony’s is you don’t have that there because coach Hurley doesn’t allow that culture to exists. I loved how selfless those kids are, I never heard kids talk about how many shots they were getting or how much they were scoring. It was about winning and getting a championship there.”

Another aspect that makes St Anthony so intriguing is the fact that they don’t have a “home” gymnasium. They are a school that consistently wins state titles and are ranked among the nations top high school teams, yet they have had 25 different practice facilities and at one time played their home games in an old bingo hall. The bingo hall, White Eagle, was so old that Hurley would need to walk around the gym prior to games and hammer down nails that were popping up.

We are raising a generation of basketball players that are used to playing AAU ball in air conditioned suburban gyms while the kids at St. Anthony don’t even have a gym to call their own. It’s this lack of affluence that unifies the kids at St Anthony and helps them to form a tight bond with each other while allowing them to mirror the toughness that their head coach embodies.

“I loved the fact that they still ride the yellow school bus to games, and the bus driver can get lost and your pulling into a gym 30 minutes before the game,” Wojnarowski reminisced. “After being around pampered guys in the pros and college it was refreshing being around these guys day in and day out because they appreciated the small things like schools offering them scholarships.”

The world of professional sports is one filled with agents, drugs, greed and corruption. Missing in professional athletes and some fans following the pro game is the love for the game that once existed. Reading Adrian Wojnarowski’s “The Miracle of St Anthony” reminded me why I fell in love with basketball, and despite my bitterness to certain aspect of the NBA why I still love the game.

Reading “The Miracle of St Anthony” will be a true blessing for any basketball fan who has forgotten why they fell in love with basketball.